Recommended Emulator: WinUAE
Supported Platforms: Windows

Recommended Emulator: MaxUAE
Supported Platforms: Mac OS X

Recommended Emulator: UAE
Supported Platforms: Linux

Amiga emulation is a complex beast due to the variety of different hardware configurations the Amiga appeared in.

What I've done here is detail a basic Amiga A500 style emulation configuration which should work for most non-AGA games.

• First go to the RAM section of the GUI and set it to 1 MB Chip RAM, and nothing else

• Next, in the ROM section, set the ROM File to your Kickstart 1.3 ROM file

• In the CPU section, set the CPU Type to 68000, and in the CPU Emulation Speed select Match A500 speed.

• In the Display section select either a Full Screen resolution of your choice, or a windowed resolution Width/Height of 720 x 576. Make sure the Line mode is set to Doubled.

• In the Chipset section, select Chipset type as Full ECS. Select Fast Copper mode in the Misc chipset options and Sprites only in the Collision level options.

• In the Sound menu, select Enabled, 100% accurate, a Frequency of 22050, Audio filter Emulated. Stereo mode, Mono. Interpolation, Disabled. Depending on the speed of your PC you may need to tweak the Sound buffer size and Sound driver lag compensation to get the sound synchronising nicely with the game you're playing.

• In the Floppies section you can attach the ADF (Amiga Disk Format) images for the game you want to play. Some games support extra floppy drives, in which case you can attach all the disks required if the game has more than one. Support for this is dependent on the game in question though.

• Once you've set all these options it's a good idea to save the configuration so you don't have to enter them in all the time. This is done in the Configurations section. Just enter a new name and then press Save. Don't forget to reload your configuration when you launch WinUAE next time.

Recommended Emulator: Atari800
Supported Platforms: Unix, DOS, Windows, WindowsCE

Recommended Emulator: Atari800 for Apple Macintosh
Supported Platforms: Carbon (MacOS 8.6+ and OS X), Classic

Recommended Emulator: Atari800Win PLus
Supported Platforms: Windows

These instructions are predominatly for the Atari800Win PLus emulator. The other emulators should be similar.

Firstly, you'll be needing to download the Emulator and BIOS ROM zip files. After you've done that, unzip the emulator to a directory. Open said directory, and then unzip the BIOS ROMs into a folder inside the Emulator folder.

Does that make sense? No?

Tough. Next, double click the excecutable, and when the dialog box pops up asking where the roms are, click "search". This will bring up the directory structure, and here you need to click the name of the directory you unzipped the ROMs to.

Click OK, and you'll notice that some of the fields have been filled in. This is all done automatically, so no need to worry about it being wrong.

Click OK again, and then you're ready to… What? No, you can't play just yet. You've got to do more unzipping first. If this has given you RSI, I apologise, but you really should stop using your feet to guide your mouse.

Next, you'll need your Game ROM. Easy enough, just download it, and unzip it to your ROMS folder.

Finally, to load your game in the emulator, click [File | Autostart image], and select the appropriate image.

Click OK and hopefully the game will load to it's title screen (or whatever the hell it's supposed to do).

Now, to set up your controls… Click [Input | Joysticks…] and peruse the following dialog box. Now, follow these steps.

1. UNCHECK the “Autofire” box.
2. Try to remember whether you have a PC joystick or not.
3. If you do, select it from the drop-down box next to “1”.
4. Make sure that the “Autofire” box next to “1” is unticked. If it’s still ticked, untick it now.
5. If you don’t have a joystick, check the Autofire Box. Make sure it’s not ticked.
6. Make sure that the Drop-down box that is headed “Autofire Mode” is set to “off”.
7. If you haven’t got a joystick, you’ll need to define a keyset. This is the Emulator’s way of fooling the virtual Atari into thinking that it’s being played with a joystick. Click “Keyset A…”
8. This will bring up a dialog box with some wiffle. Just click OK, and then set your keys accordingly.
9. Click “OK”, and then select “Keyset A” from the drop-down box next to “1”.
10. Ensure Autofire is NOT enabled.
11. Click OK

You might have gathered from the above that Autofire is Frowned Upon! :)

The following Atari800 keys are mapped like this:

• F2 - Option
• F3 - Select
• F4 - Start

You may need some of these for specific games...

Recommended Emulator: model-b
Supported Platforms: Windows

Recommended Emulator: BeebEm
Supported Platforms: Windows, Unix

Recommended Emulator: Horizon
Supported Platforms: Windows, MacOS, MacOS X

The following instructions are for the model-b emulator, as this seems to be the quickest and easiest to get going.

• Unzip the emulator into whatever directory you want it installed in.
• Create a new directory called disks in this directory
• Run model-b.exe
• Select File -> Quickstart
  
  
  
• Select Add Dir and navigate to your newly created disks directory and say OK. You should then see all the available disks in the previous menu.
  
  
  
• Double-click the disk you want to load.
• That's it. It should now load and run automagically. :)

You'll need to use Alt-PrtScr and paste the results into a paint package of your choise to get screenshots from this emulator.

Recommended Emulator: VICE
Supported Platforms: Unix, Windows, Mac OSX, Acorn RISC OS, OS/2, BeOS x86

Recommended Emulator: CCS64
Supported Platforms: Dos, Windows, Linux, Unix

The following instructions are for the VICE emulator. The other emulators should be similar.

Don't we all love the C64? Yes, yes we do. Unless it wins a poll against any other game on any other system, in which case we'll moan a bit.

But, for the most part (and the purpose of this FAQ) we all love the Commodore. Period.

Right, to participate in the C64 shenanigans you'll need a toilet roll, some empty egg boxes, and lots of PVA glue.

First, here's one I made earlier.

…

…

…

Oh, alright.

First off, you'll be needing an emulator, as always. This, for the multiple platformy goodness, will be VICE. After you've downloaded that, decompressing it (or for all you Linuxheads out there, I suppose you'll need to compile it, hm?) into an easily-accessible folder would be your next logical step.

Now, after you've done that, you should be downloading your game ROMfile. You can get the relevant ones from Llamascores.

You'll probably have noticed that when you unzipped VICE, you were presented with multiple programs, instead of just a Commodore 64 emulator. Well, VICE appears to be the daddy of all old Commodore emulators, emulating the PET, C64, C128, VIC-20…

Anyway, interesting information aside, we're going into dialog-box world once again… stick your gamefile somewhere easy to remember within your VICE folder (maybe a directory labeled "roms" (or "romz" if you're t3h l33t, or just trying to be t3h funny) and decompress it.

Now double click the C64 version of Vice, and click [File | Autostart disk/tape image…]. This will bring up a dialog box. Navigate your way to t3h rh0mz folder, and double-click whatever it is you want to play.

This should make it work. Obviously, your joystick won't work because you haven't set it up yet (ha!) but there'll be C64 emulation on your computer, at least.

To set up your controls, click [Settings | Joystick Settings…], which will bring up yet another Dialog box. If you have a pad/stick, set the drop-down box headed “Joystick in port #1:” to “PC Joystick #1”. If you are without stickage, then you’ll be wanting to configure a Keyset.

A Keyset is a way of fooling the computer into thinking that the keys that you’ll be pressing on that there keyboard are actually joystick commands. Set the “Joystick in port #1” field to “Keyset A”, and then click “Config Keyset A”. Set up your desired controls, and then go back to your game.

If the game doesn’t appear to be picking up joystick commands, hit [Ctrl+J]. This effectively nips round the side of your virtual C64, and rips the virtual joystick out of it’s virtual joystick port, and bungs it in the other one. The Commodore was funny about which port the stick needed to be in, sometimes it was 1, sometimes 2. It’s virtual cousin is no different. Either way, this should enable it to work.

To take a screenshot: hit [Alt+C]. This will bring up yet ANOTHER dialog box, with the option of where to save it and as what format: I recommend PNG, for the least amount of pissing around.

And you’re done.

Addendum: Recording Games with VICE

To record a game with VICE, first make sure you have the latest version (v1.15 at time of writing).

In the Snapshot menu, select Select History files/directory, then navigate to/make the directory you wish to store the recording in. The filenames default to start.vsf and end.vsf which is just fine.

Then load your game as normal.

When you want to start the recording, go to the Snapshot menu and select Start/Stop Recording History.

Play your game, and when you're done go to the Snapshot menu and select Start/Stop Recording History again.

When submitting the score/recording, zip up the directory containing your recording start and stop files, and name the zip in the usual format (game_name-score-player_name.zip), and attach to your post as usual.

Recommended Emulator: MAME duh!
Supported Platforms: Win32, MacOS, Unix

Remind me how to post a screenshot again...

Download MAME. www.mame.dk is a mirror for all versions of MAME, be it Linux, Mac or Win32 you're after.

Decompress/compile/shake an apple at the file you've just downloaded, and stick it somewhere easy to access.

Once that's done, download your appropriate ROM from Llamascores and then stick it in the \roms\ folder. It can stay zipped up, MAME can decompress at will.

That's the easy part.

Next is the slightly tricky part... Load up your version of MAME, and refresh the gamelist however you do it (in Windows it's F5, in any other OSs I'm not so sure), and select the list of "Available" games (IE ones that you have available to play on your computer). All the ROMs you downloaded from Llamascores should be available. To play one, double click it.

If it asks you to type "OK", do as it says. If it asks you to "Press Any Key", also do as it says.

When you get into the actual game, you may well notice a seemingly corrupt display. Don't worry about this, as MAME emulates all the shiz that the cabinet would have done, so it's just going through the boot-up motions.

To insert a coin (!) Press 5. To start a one-player game, it's generally 1.

You'll probably notice that your joystick isn't working. That's because you've not configured it, and I'm really annoying, so when I write these FAQs I make it so you want to break my neck before said emulator is anywhere near useful.

So, to quit the game and set up your joystick, first hit Esc. That'll dump you back to the GUI. Then, click [Options | Default Options | Controllers] and check the "Enable Joystick" box. Re-load the game, and all should work.

To take a screenshot in MAME, you just press F12 and a sparkling .png image will be saved in the \snap\ directory of your MAME folder. To make a recording, right-click on the game you wish to play, and select "Play and Record input". This will then bring up a dialog box, which will ask you what you want to save the file as. Once you've decided that, the game will start. The high-scores that were once there won't display on a recording - don't worry, they'll still be saved, but recordings don't use them for some reason.

That should be it.

Go on.

Play.

Recommended Emulator: MESS (Multi Emulator Super System)
Supported Platforms: Win32, MacOS, Unix

I'm already assuming that you've downloaded this, and unzipped it to a folder, yes?

You haven't?

Go do it, you lazy sod.

Right, now it's all nice and expanded, you'll be needing some files: The BIOS and whichever game you'll be playing.

Open up your MESS folder and look for the subdirectory called "bios". Bung your BIOS file in that folder (like it wasn't self-explanitory enough anyway) and then get your gamefile.

You can leave both BIOS and Game ROMs zipped up, so you don't need to mess around extracting to folders.

Then grab your gamefile, and then navigate your way into the "software" folder in your MESS folder. Create yet another folder called "sms" and stick the gamefile in there.

After all that, load up the MESS GUI version. Before you start, you'll want to do a couple of things. The first will be to enable your screenshots... Click "Options" then "Default System Options...". Click the "Miscellaneous" tab, and then uncheck "Use new UI". Second, if you have a gamepad, or joystick or some sort of gamery utensil, then click the "Controllers" tab and check any relevant boxes (you probably will only need the joystick one though).

Click "OK" on the properties dialog bux and click "available" in the leftmost panel. This should bring up a short list of machines. Select "Master System II - (NTSC) US/European BIOS with Alex Kidd in Miracle World" and finally, double-click the game you want to play.

To take a screenshot of the game you are playing, hit F12. This will save a .png file into the /snap/ directory in your MESS folder.

To take a recording of the game you're playing, you'll have to exit the game you're currently playing. Go on. Hit ESC.

Now you've done that, select the game you wish to record you playing, then... click "File", then "Play and record input". Specify where you want to save it and what the filename will be in the dialog box that appears, and then click "OK". The game will then start.

The only difference is that your moves are being logged in a file, which will be saved where you specified, e.g. the /inp/ folder in your MESS directory.

Recommended Emulator: ZSNES
Supported Platforms: Win32, DOS, Linux

Recommended Emulator: SNES9x
Supported Platforms: Win32, DOS, Linux, Mac

Right then, as always, you’ll need your ROMfile, and your Emulator: These can (as always) be obtained from llamascores.org.

First, unzip the emulator into some sort of memorable location (desktop/pr0n/boobies/ may be a good place to start). Then, get your ROMfile and unzip that into the same folder. Or, if you’re one of these organised types, make a folder called “nipple close-ups” and put all your ROMs in there.

Now, to load the Emulator, double click it. You didn’t need me to tell you that, but for the purposes of integrity…

After you’ve done that, you’ll be presented with the GUI. Pretty, isn’t it? Anyway, now you want to click [options], followed by [control options]. No, really. You do.

Bear in mind that the SNES has six buttons by default, not including “Start” and “Select” and quite often you’ll need all six to hand, so it is recommended that you either have a six-button gamepad or you have a comfortable arrangement on the keyboard.

So, to set the controls: Click [Config | Controller #1] and then select [Keyb/Joystick]. Click [Set Keys], set your keys, and click [ok].

Once you’ve done that, you can either go and do something else, and make this whole process a waste of time, or you can load your ROM and let it do it’s ROMmy thing.

To load the ROM, click [File | Open] and find it using the dialogue box that appears. It may well be in your “nipple close-ups” folder, don’t forget. Once you’ve located it, double click it and it’ll automatically load and run.

The key you’ve defined to the Start button will do the trick for getting you through most menus, and something of note: The A button is normally to confirm things, and the B button normally cancels things.

Screenshots will have to be done by a screengrab in your native OS, Windows is [print screen]. As far as I’m aware, there’s no screeny function.

And, I suppose that’s it. Just don’t let your other half see that directory tree…